


Hotel VS

by Rubilec_Mendoza



Category: American Horror Story: Hotel, The Virgin Suicides (1999), The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
Genre: Contains graphic depictions of violence, Crossover, Multi, Sexuality, and/or other mature themes.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 06:30:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 8,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15624720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubilec_Mendoza/pseuds/Rubilec_Mendoza
Summary: DARE WALK THE NAKED, BLOODY CORRIDORS OF MADNESS?Running away from life and death and from a relentless stalker, Lux Lisbon checks into ominous Hotel Cortez. She senses that something is not right with the place, but she's tired and broke, and it's a rainy night. So she stays, takes the key to room 64. And so begins her journey through the whispering corridors of blood, sex, and insanity, down to the smoldering, deadly passions of a conflicted serial murderer named James March.[AHS Hotel + The Virgin Suicides]





	1. WAYNE

**Author's Note:**

> © 2018 by Rubilec Mendoza

I am on the rooftop of my lust and insanity once again, this shingled, chimneyed, rotting rooftop of my old home in Wayne.

I am with one of the men. I don't know which one. It's a dark night; I can't tell. I don't care. I just want his warmth. I just need to do this, right here above where my three living sisters and my parents are sleeping. I don't know why. I just feel free out here in the cold.

I know that there are eyes watching. It must be the neighborhood boys. Tim Winer and his friends. Nice boys, those ones. Paul Baldino would be with them. Bad boy, could be my type--if his badness weren't patented from his mafia relations.

At least this guy with me right here is anonymous. I met him at the drugstore before--before my sisters and I were incarcerated in our own home by our mother's suffocating brand of love.

No, I think this is that guy who made out with me in the family car while I waited for Mom to come out of the bank.

I am confusing them.

It doesn't matter. He's good. I tell him to slip it in it will make us feel closer for a while.

He does. Yes, this one's warmer than the one last night. Tomorrow night perhaps I'll have the biker who once took me for a ride outside Hudson's.

"Can I move now?" asks this guy who's on top of me. His panting is slower now. His breath still reeks of cigarettes. But so does mine.

"All right," I say. I hold on tight to the edge of the chimney, feel the bowl of vinegar I used as contraception last night (we're wearing a condom tonight).

He moves--carefully. That's the thing with this guy, though. He's a bit too scared of falling off the rooftop. I mean, the shingles are digging into my back also. What's wrong with a little pain?

Or maybe he's tired already. I liked him when he's rougher--earlier in the session.

And now he's panting like a dog again, as he slides too slickly in and out of me. He's now like a melting marshmallow on top of me.

I can tell by the helpless tone of his moaning that he's close to climaxing. Perhaps I can share in his ecstasy.

"Aaah," he whispers in my ear. I pulled his head against my breasts and let him spasm in bliss. I feel a ripe zit on his back. I squeeze it.

 _Pop_. "Aaah..."

"We're here..."

_Shit. Who's that?_


	2. HOTEL CORTEZ

"We're here...miss."

"Cecilia?" I croak.

"What?" It's a woman's voice.

I look around.

Ah. Taxi cab.

I look in the rearview mirror and smile at the kind-looking middle-aged driver. "My sister's name. Cecilia. She's been dead a long time." Before she can react, I add, "How much?"  
She quotes the fare. I reach inside my cheap yet stylish purse (almost empty) and hand her the exact amount, no tip.

I step out before the driver can complain. I only have one luggage, a cute little trunk, which I sat on my lap in the cab's backseat.

The car speeds away in a feeble cloud of exhaust.

The light drizzle is cold against my skin. I look up. The neon signage, in a dim but steady red, spells Hotel Cortez downward and to the right on the quaint building's drab facade.

I stand uncertain on the sidewalk. Only a few people walk here this evening. Or perhaps every evening, who knows.

My stalker is not one of those few people. Yet he's not the only stalker I've got. I dreamed of that time again. That dazed existence after my sister Cecilia's death--suicide.

I shake my head and walk on toward the low glass doors. It's dimmer inside. No one in sight. No doorman. No guests.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing for someone with stalkers?

Doesn't matter. This is a hotel I can afford. Besides, the shower had turned to rain, and it's a chilly night.

I push the door open, step into the relative warmth. The interior is grand, empty, and murky. It speaks of better times. Like a fallen queen. Bitter and brooding, but still beautiful, in a terrible and lethargic way.

The dominant hue is dark red, like wine, like blood. There's a murky smell of age. Still, the dusty show pieces and gold-colored embellishments were sparks in the dark--also the invisible energy that makes me hesitate.

Sparks of energy, yes. And watchful eyes.

_Ugh. You're just paranoid._

There's no one at the front desk across the gaping lobby. I take a breath and walk past the crimson couches under the stalactite chandeliers of gold. (This area feels like a blackhole.)

Again that prickly sensation of being watched, from the empty balconies above.

I reach the front office. There's the desk, a display of door keys behind it, an open door to the right. But there's no one here still.

There's a small silver bell on the desk, though. I ring it once. Twice.

"Hotel California" plays somewhere above my head, like from a jukebox, I imagine. Suddenly, I have a vision of two perfect, brown bodies slapping wetly against each other.

I press the bell again and again. Fuck courtesy. Fuck it if there's not even anyone to show it to.

_"Welcome to the hotel California..."_

Oh. That song. I can't help but raise my head to the foreboding sound.

"Yes. I saw you the first time."

I jump and look back down. A stout lady in glasses and a red vest stands before me, behind the counter. I tell her I have a reservation. She takes my name and my money and gives me my key.

 _Some welcome,_ I think as I make my way to the elevator to the right.

I press up.

 _Ding_. Here it is. Empty, of course, and thank God. My head is starting to ache. I close my eyes. Will Trip find me here?

Trip Fontaine is my ex-lover, and now my stalker.

 _Ding_. The elevator door opens. Here we are, sixth floor.

Step out into the claustrophobic corridor. Move noiselessly down it toward room 64.

Noises behind the doors left and right. Moans. Sex sounds. Whipping. Thud-thud-thuds and slap-slap-slaps. And screams.

So, the place is not empty. People are just busy.

Well it's a hotel. It's nighttime.

Here's the room now. _64_ , in a drab font.

I slip in the key, open the door.

"Oh!"

_What the hell!_


	3. ROOM 64

There's someone in the room. I can just make out the outline of the body in the murk. That's in the first shocked second upon the opening of the door.

Without turning, I grope for the light switch that should be on the wall beside the door, hit it.

The sudden light isn't very bright, not the kind that would hurt the eyes, but just enough to drive the shadows away, including that one standing at the foot of the bed.

 _Of course._ Gosh, I'm seeing things. I haven't been getting much good sleep lately, that's why.

I decide I just hallucinated. But then, later, when I've settled in the bed, washed and fed on granola, ready to sleep--to try anyway--I feel a movement under me, in the mattress.

Before I can react, I feel my neck being squeezed in a choke hold--by two arms that shot out from inside the mattress.

 _But I checked the locks earlier!_ So did I not merely hallucinate the silhouette? Or is this another person altogether. Entity?

Shit, I don't need this right now.

Mad in every sense, I struggle with all my might. But the vise grip won't slacken.

When I pause to breathe, I feel the guy's erection pressing against my ass.

So this is another pervert.

What, there are tears in the matress covered by the bed sheet and this jackass has been hiding there in wait for someone to lie on it?

Whatever. The boner doesn't feel like an ordinary one. It's a bit too hard, too ridged, too pointed--like a drill. Can it be something else? But it's in the right area. And it's the right temperature, almost fever hot.

Whether that's a penis or not, I decide I won't get raped. I scream at the top of my lungs and jerk left and right.

"Let me go, let me go!"

He won't. His breath is hot and rotten as he groans like a madman in my ear. I shriek again. The door is thrown open.

"Let the girl go!"

I roll my eyes downward, see someone else in the room--a gentleman in the doorway.

"I said let her go!" His voice booms and reverberates with authority, like he owns the place. He probably does; he looks it, expensive-looking dark suit and all. Weird hair, weird mustache. Solid gentleman from another time.

"Who are you now?" my would-be rapist cries tremulously.

"Dave," says the gentleman, calmly this time, "you just forgot to take your medicine, Dave. It's not your fault. But let the girl go. All right? Enough of this crooked game."

"What?! I don't even know you. And my name's not Dave, you asshole! The lady--the junkie did this to me--you're all in this together, you crazy people!"  
I feel his grip loosening. So I take the chance and pull away quickly, as hard as I can. Jump out of bed.

The gentleman runs toward me, past me. I look: the guy in the mattress is up (he's in stained white briefs). He wields a knife, brandishes it wildly in front of him.

The gentleman docks and charges, hitting the other one in the midsection. They fall. There's a struggle, and suddenly blood. It stinks. It must be the junkie's (the mattress guy looks like that anyway, with needle bruises on his arms and those wild eyes).

The gentleman stands. I take a step back. He turns slowly to face me. "I feel terrible," he says, and he looks contrite and sad, his black, black eyes shiny with tears, his hands bloody. He keeps a respectful distance. "I am sorry for all this. We should have committed him in an asylum long ago. But he's family, you see. Let me make it up to you. Don't go, please."

I don't know why, but I agree--to stay. Maybe it's because I have no money to go anywhere else. Maybe it's because he saved me and I trust him. I don't get from him the creepy feeling that my ex-boyfriend, now stalker, gives me every time, even with the blood on his hands.

I am not weak or misogynistic, but he's also tall and handsome.

"I think I need a drink," I say. And he beams at me.

"I am James March. Pleased to make your acquaintance." He raises his hand to offer a shake, changes his mind.

I smile nervously, gave him my real name without thinking. "I'm Lux Lisbon. I'm pleased to meet you, too, James March."

His name sounds familiar. Well, I'm not exactly in the proper state of mind to be doing much recalling. I just let James March lead me out of the room.

_Where's he taking me?_


	4. JAMES MARCH

I follow Mr. March down the hall, where all the sex sounds have mysteriously quieted down. The black hexagonal patterns on the red carpet seem to stand out in my vision, also the crimson doors in their thick mahogany frames (all geometric and sharp angles like a lot of things in this hotel; that's the theme, I guess), and the sconces on the walls and the warm white lights overhead.

"This way, please," Mr. March says in that deep voice that crackles at the end, with that unplaceable accent that sounds almost British. He keeps his pace with mine, never leaving me behind, despite the discrepancy in our leg length and the solidness of our footing. (I'm still reeling from all the blood. Curiously, Mr. March seems to have gotten all of the blood off his hands with his handkerchief, which I didn't notice he's thrown somewhere along the way, or perhaps slipped in a pocket.)

Walking side by side with him gives me some kind of weird comfort, like knowing you shouldn't be with someone yet there's nowhere else you'd rather be. We take the left turn at the end of the corridor. Here's another hallway. Mr. March's room is somewhere down this maze.

I stop when he does. "Here we are," he says, gesturing politely at the door.

"No, that can't be." I'm overreacting. There must be an explanation. Embarrassing, but I must have entered the wrong room earlier. But my key opened that other door. "Are there two room 64's?" I ask, uncertain, staring at the brass _64_ on this door.

Mr. March smiled without showing his straight set of teeth. The thin mustache below his perfect triangle of a nose stretched outward, and I don't know why but this sends a shiver down my spine--the electric kind that makes you feel alive. It is a gentleman's smile.

"You were actually in room 46 earlier," he says.

I lower my head in embarrassment. That's when I notice I'm wearing nothing but my sheer white nightgown. No underwear. Barefoot. Don't judge me; this gives me a better chance of having a good night's sleep, even in cold nights (there are thick comforters if I need warmth).

I see the bloody key in his left hand. _46_ , it says. Gosh, how could I have made such a mistake?

I'm glad he doesn't make any comment to make me feel better about my stupidity. But my face grows warm as I see him slip a key with the number 64 on its tag in this door in front of us.

"Come on in," Mr. March says when he's inside.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. March. This is such a nice room." Spacious--a suite, really. Less gaudy. Smells dusty, but there's comfort even in that. At least it doesn't reek of blood.

"Call me James, Lux." He sits me down on the couch in the middle. "What a pretty name for a pretty girl."

I've heard that one before, but this is the only time I believe it.

"Thanks, James."

"Let me get you a drink," he says, and walks over to a rack in the corner, pours something in two glasses, walks back to me.

"Thank you." I take the drink I desperately need. Bourbon. Ah, the burn, the bloom, very nice.

I know he doesn't take me a aminor, just a young woman. I look it, too.

Mr. March takes off his black jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. It is warm and smells of a man. I smile up at him. Gosh, his eyes are so black.

"What happens now?" I ask. He walks back to the corner, one hand in his pocket (I can't help but notice how this highlights the nice round shape of his buttocks when he turns sideways), one holding his own glass. He tips the drink casually, swallows, licks his crimson lips.

"I'm not going to call the police. He's family after all. I hope you don't mind?"

"I'm relieved, actually. I don't want to draw attention to myself. I have my own...problems."

He nods his head, and not one shiny black strand of hair falls out of place. His profile is more striking in the gloom--no, make that romantic lighting--like the careful creation of a skilled sculptor. Mr. March--James--is classic, in the best of ways.

A moment of peaceful silence follows. And then we look at each other. Gaze. We both set our glasses down, I on the coffee table, he on the counter. I stand in my short, almost see-through nightdress. His jacket falls off my shoulders (his shoulder span is a lot wider than mine).

I stand quivering in need. Times like these, when something pushes me even lower than the rock bottom I hit long ago, someone's warmth pulls me a little higher to a place where life doesn't feel like death.

James takes a big, easy step toward me. Already I can see the bulge inside his pants. Actually, I've already noticed this earlier, but I pretended I didn't, since I knew it wasn't an erection--yet--just his natural size.

Another step, another, and we're pressing our bodies against each other. Arms tight around backs. Hands grabbing and groping. Mouths swapping whiskey and fluids of desire.

Yes, now his natural size is growing even bigger, harder, hotter. I can feel it uncoiling, stretching on my abdomen. I know he can feel the hardened tips of my breasts also.

"Oh, love me. James, love me."

"Oh. Ohhh..."


	5. LUX

He opens his eyes wide, like he's just woken up. He held me by the shoulders, lovingly, apologetically. "I can't. I'm sorry, I can't. Not right now."

I let out a disappointed sigh. But I also nod my head. I understand. There's a droplet of blood on his cheek. His eyes are so black.

"Stay here, please. I'll come back after I've taken care of business, you know."

"I know. Your..." I realize he didn't tell me how the dead mattress junkie is related to him.

"My second cousin."

"Yes. I think you'd better do that. Attend to business, I mean." _Although I'll certainly be waiting for you here._

Then he leaves. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like a child who didn't get the candy that she'd been promised.

And I can't just turn it off, the desire. It's stronger than ever, now that my anger is rising, not anger toward Mr. March--I mean, who am I to demand anything from him, he saved my life--but anger at whatever dark force has been ruining my life since Wayne, since Cecilia's suicide.

It's in _The Silence of the Lambs_ which I read that anger manifests itself in people as lust. A conversation between Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling.

No wonder I get unbelievably horny sometimes.

Smiling not in mirth, I sit back down on the couch, on Mr. March's man-smelling jacket. I spread my legs. Reach under my nightgown. Feel myself wet down there.

I start moving my fingers. Eyes closed. Moaning softly.

"Do you want some help with that?"

I jump and shriek in surprise. There's another man just inside the door.


	6. LIZ AND SALLY

"Listen," he continues gravely, "you need your rest tonight, after everything that happened. I'll see you in the morning. But I want you to have this, for your protection."

James March hands me a Beretta. I take it and say thank you, not bothering to inform him I already have one like it. The gesture touches me deeply. We smile at each other. He knows I know how to use it; I don't need to explain. He leaves. And I lock the door immediately. No need to tell me that as well. I wonder if it's that obvious I'm running from someone.

And I wonder where Mr. March has gone to. Probably the business with the dead, crazy second cousin. Would it be the clean up? Wouldn't there be someone to do that for him, like a faithful maid?

After I take a shower I hear a knock at the door. I walk noiselessly in that direction, cautiously look through the peephole, withdraw right away. I don't know which movie I got this from. Maybe from _Leon the Professional_. Or maybe not.

"What is it?" I ask, steel in my voice.

"Room service," answers a masculine voice with a feminine quality.

"I didn't order room service."

"No, Mr. March ordered for you."

I clutch the pistol inside the ridiculously huge pocket of the pink robe I'm wearing. Open the door swiftly.

The guy--gal (he's a transvestite, okay, just stating a fact, no judgment there)--looks a bit exasperated. He looks me top to bottom and then back up again, one long eyebrow raised. He smirks but doesn't change his pose, one hip jutting to the side, manicured hands on the handle of the cart bearing silverware and glassware--and the food, too, I assume.

He's tall and lean-muscled, a gold-colored turban wrapped around his head, some swirly butterfly robe draped on his body. The make-up and dangly earrings did nothing to soften his sharp manly features. He's beautiful in a non-conventional way.

"What's your name?" I ask, keeping my distance still.

"Liz Taylor," he says. "You don't want the food? Come to the bar downstairs. There's no one there. Just me and Sally. She lives here."

I pause to think. James seems to trust him, Liz Taylor. Maybe it's time to relax a bit.

"Okay. I'd rather have company tonight, I guess."

Finally Liz smiles. Just a little twitch in the corners of his lipsticked mouth, but a welcome smile just the same.

"Let me just put something on."

"Go on. I'll put this away and then come back for you." He's already pushing the cart away.

Five minutes later, I'm dressed in a simple black number and going down in the elevator to the bar with Liz Taylor. The place is empty as advertised. Only one person here, smoking a cigarette behind the counter.

"So you're Mr. March's guest." Her voice is a little scratchy, jaded like her whole appearance.

"Yes, I guess." I sit on a stool, and she sits beside me. Liz takes her place behind the counter.

"Of course you are." I can't interpret her meaning or that of her smile. She has the amused expression of the jaded when they are presented with something slightly interesting.

"Here's your drink, darling." Liz put a bloody mary in front of me.

"Thanks, Liz."

"Yes, thanks, Liz," the woman says, still smiling. I wonder if she's high. She does look like a junkie with her running mascara and big fried hair and long black dress, and of course the needle marks and bruises on display for the world to see.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Sally McKenna."

"Hey, you haven't told me your name yet," interrupts Liz.

"I'm Lux."

"Lux," they repeat at the same time. They laugh at the same time. I can't help but smile--after gaping at them like they're crazy. _Oh no, is she related to the Dave guy in room 46?_

_Doesn't matter. He was also related to James March, and James is a gentleman._

"Such name." Sally's cigarette sheds a length of ash to the floor. "Maybe that's why Mr. March likes you. Aside from the fact that you're young, of course."

"Are you...are you related to him?"

Again they laugh.

"Heavens, no. I just live here." Then she's suddenly quiet, as she drags a smoke and exhaled it in rings. I used to be able to do that. I don't smoke anymore.

Before I can quite discern what's going on, Sally's weeping quietly. Maybe that's why her eye make-up is running. This seems to be her natural state. Lachrymal. A response to jadedness perhaps.

"We live here, Liz, don't we? We fucking live here."

Liz doesn't answer.

"What about you, Lux, do you want to live here?" Sally's gaze can bore holes through my skull.

"I...I don't really know. I don't really have that option, so..."

"Forget about it," she says, smiling while weeping. "Enjoy your drink."

So I do. Later in bed, I dream about the strange encounter and about James March, naked, screwing some girl. And then there's blood and darkness. Screams of pleasure and pain. The face of my stalker flashes in the dark. Trip Fontaine. His love for me has morphed into something evil.


	7. BATHROOM

_Click-click ... Click-clack..._

My eyes flick open and I see darkness.

What's that noise?

_Clack-click..._

Before I can even feel nervous, my right hand has already taken the Beretta from under my pillow.

My ears, like my other senses, are perked up.

Silence. I don't dare take a breath. Completely still, I roll my eyes sideward, to the right. I make out the shape of the light fixture on the ceiling. No movement.

Like a nimble cat, I jump and stand on the bed, bouncing a little, pointing the pistol to one direction, and then to another.

Nothing. I am alone.

Pulse racing, I jump down to the floor. The soft rug muted the sound of my landing. I move the small gun to my left hand, use my right to take James's Beretta under the mattress.

I feel like a little girl playacting some videogame heroine using real, dangerous weapons.

Whatever. There's real danger everywhere. You can't blame me for acting all Lara Croft while moving quietly toward the bathroom. I'm pretty sure the noise I heard earlier came from the shower.

_Click-click-clack._

There it is again. Those would be the metal rings holding the shower curtain to the metal rod.

Now I'm standing inside the open bathroom door. I take a breath, hold it in, flick the light switch on.

The figures behind the flimsy curtain start moving. It's as though they'd waited for me to be here before they go on with their business.

It's like watching a sex scene from an old Van Damme movie. The shadows have a very clear outline and very sexual shape: a curvy woman pinned against the wall as she clings to her lover using all four limbs, the man maniacally pounding her.

She puts her feet down, seductively bends over on one side so I can see her long, wavy hair dangling almost to the floor, the crazy reverse arch of her back, and the perfect roundness of her bum. The guy's throbbing cock merges with the black silhouette of that roundness, like a giant needle piercing a plump cushion.

_Pop._

It's the ugly grunting sound the woman makes that snaps me back on attention. It's a guttural noise that so grating, as if her throat was made of shredded flesh.

"Get out of my room!" I yell, and at the same time I draw the curtain open as swiftly as I can.

This time it's I who make a terrible noise that's the scream of the horrified.

In the dry shower stall are two corpses having sex. They're staring at me with their dead rotting eyes.


	8. TRIP

I run out of room 64, dizzy and stumbling on my feet.

What is this place?

I have to get out of here.

Where's that damn elevator?

My God, I'm lost!

The hallways are a maze.

No. This is a trick. It's that evil force. It has always wanted me to come here.

I shriek in frustration. The act only made me weaker. I fall to my knees but hold on tight to my guns.

Oh James, where are you?

Or is this the doing of that woman from earlier tonight? Elizabeth. She said she wanted to see me ruined. Because I fucked her man?

But, God, that seems like a long time ago. Time, and everything else are slowly losing their meaning, melting into a big lump of cosmic joke that is my life.

After throwing up bile on the fancy, dusty carpet of this meandering labyrinth of a corridor, I grit my teeth and stand on my feet, wobbly at first but slowly becoming steady.

I spit on the wall and focus on the numbers on the doors. 69. 68. 66. 300.

What?!

Shit, they want me to go insane. They're laughing at me, whoever they are.

I open the nearest door. Empty. As in nothing. Not even one filthy rug.

Next door. A fucking elephant.

I slam the door on the animal's trunk.

It's not even a real animal.

Shapeshifter. Cosmic clown. Horror joke.

No, stop it.

Another door. A black gaping hole I could've fallen into and stay falling inside forever, if I hadn't pulled back the last second.

I close my eyes and take long yogic breaths.

A little calm now, I push the next door open. 46.

And I come face to face with the very person I'm running from: Trip.

He is sixty years old.

A fit sixty years old, screwing a boyish man right inside the door, while two bloody blondes watch nearby, themselves making out with each other and giggling in amusement.

"Hello, Lux. It's been a long time."

The bottom man grunts and screams. He's covered in sweat, gleaming in all his naked glory, his cock nodding like his head, with all its dripping-wet hair and dangly, glinty cock ring.

The man lets out one horrible shriek and spasms. I already have my pistol pointed at Trip's grinning face, but the bottom chooses this time to shoot his load--at me, right in my face.

The white fluid smells of death. I back away and wipe the thing off my cheek. Trip is laughing at me.

"Why don't you join the fun, Lux? Come on. You know you've always wanted me. Don't fight it. Come in here and let's have a good time, like in the old days." While all the time pounding the wilted man, who hangs on weakly to the door jamb.

The blonde girls inside are speaking in a language that must be Swedish. They're pretty, if not for the blood on their naked bosoms.

"Rot in hell, Trip Fontaine!"

I point my two guns at him, but I find out that instead of guns, I'm holding roses. They're all laughing at me now.

Swearing under my breath, I scramble to my feet and start to run away. I gasp when I bump into the bloody breasts of the blonde girls.

"How--"

They push me inside Trip's room and tie me in a chair.

"Now watch," Trip says. As he does the poor writhing man,the two girls take a drill and carefully slip it up his ass--Trip's ass.

Trip shakes his head and howls, but in pleasure--perverted pleasure.

"You're sick! Let me go!"

"That's nough, ladies," he orders the blondes, ignoring me. The two bloody beauties walk enticingly in front of Trip and step on the bottom male.

Trip won't stop murdering the bottom's bottom hole even as he plays with the girls' bouncy knockers.

This was what I dreamed about, my nightmare, this hellish sound that wants me to cover my ears. I raise my hands suddenly and unintentionally loosen the ropes which I've been working on earlier to frustrating results.

"Stop it!" I cry, feigning hopelessness. My hands are now free behind my back.

It's when Trip suddenly freezes to orgasm that I lunge for the drill and stab him in the shoulder.

Blood spurts out from the hole. The blonde ladies lick their lips. Trip, unexpectedly, cries, "Ecstasyyy!" and then springs up to face me.

Naked, dick covered in blood and shit, he growls, "I'm still alive, Lux." He hisses the last sound in my name. I run to the open door.

"Seize her!"


	9. THE OTHER STALKER

The blondes run to the door with superhuman speed, block it, and lock it.

"You're vampires," I venture, desperate, "drink his blood."

"Oh we're hungry for blood," says one in an accented English.

"But we don't drink it," finishes the other.

"We just want to have fun."

"It's our purpose." They're giggling again.

"Your purpose," I repeat, wanting to laugh with them but lacking the strength to do it. "Your fucking purpose."

I turn my attention to Trip.

"Fine, Trip, you win. I'm yours." I walk over to the bed, where he lies naked and lazy, already smoking weed, ignoring the wound I inflicted on him. He never really changed. I heard he went to rehab, but I guess that was just for show.

The girls are watching from the door. They watch as I walk calmly to the corner table and drink whiskey straight from the bottle. I set the half-empty carafe on Trip's hairy stomach with the vague traces of long-gone abs.

"You will always be mine, Lux. Don't you know that?"

"Yeah, drink up."

He takes the bottle from me and props himself on an elbow to pour alcohol into his gullet.

"You followed me here."

"I did not," he says.

I'm honestly baffled.

"I've always known you'd end up here." He sees the question in my eyes. "In my wanderings, Lux, in search of the fountain of youth, and of you, I've heard about the Hotel Cortez and it's unholy revenants. This place attracts evil."

"I'm not evil," I snap.

"Hey, I didn't say that." And here I see a trace of the Trip I've fallen in love with--in the distant past. But this tiny trace fleets away and what's left is a rotten being with a human shell.

"It's the entity that attached itself to you I'm talking about. It brought you here, to its home."

"The dark force," I mutter absently.

"Force? Wait, you mean to say you've never seen its face?"

"No." I sit up, suddenly interested.

"It's a he. A man in black that follows you around, hovers above your head."

"My other stalker."

Trip grins. He's lost a lot of teeth. I'm never kissing that unhygienic mouth.

"Yeah, I guess you can say that. I'm only your secondary stalker."

"How does it--he--look like?"

"Like your father."

"I'm serious. I won't fuck you if you don't tell me."

"The man in black looks like your father."

"Well shit. But how come you see it and I don't."

"I guess it's because I'm obsessed with you, so I see things about you that you're not even aware of."

I want to laugh at that, but I'm tired. I sense that Trip has no more information to offer. I stroke his bejeweled cock and listen to his moan. When he closes his eyes, I snatch the bottle from his hand and smash it on his head.

Leaving the bed, I head straight for the door, giving the blondes a black look.

"Very entertaining," they say at the same time, like twins.

"Out of the way," I hiss.

"We'll finish him off," the one on the left informs me.

"Fine," I tell them.

They move toward the bed. I step over the boyish man, who's stroking his semi-erect organ absently, dopedly, and I open the door.

I fall into James March's arms like it's the most natural thing in the world.

"I followed your screams here. I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner. Are you hurt, my dear Lux?"

"No, James. Just please take me away from here."

I can love this man, I think to myself, but I'll stay longer here with him only because this place holds the answer to my questions, perhaps the key to my freedom from the man in black.

As I walk away with James from room 46 and the pleasure-pain noises from within, I see the beautiful Elizabeth in the corner of my eye. She's standing outside one of the rooms, gazing at me with a blank expression on her eerily glowing face.


	10. IMMORTAL

"It sounds like you're staying here for a while," says Sally languidly as she drags another from her endless cigarette. We are with Liz Taylor at the bar. He now has a feather in his turban, and his long sheer robe has an oil swirl motif.

"Mr. March asked us in particular to keep an eye on you," says Liz, pouring vodka in my waiting glass. "And we will, but it only seems fitting that we should know more about the person we're supposed to be looking after, don't you think?"

I raise my gaze to study the expression on his contoured face. He is serious. And so is Sally.

"All right," I tell them. I empty my glass and turn my head to Sally, whose eye makeup is still running and who's still in the animal-print coat, and then to Liz, icy still behind the bar. "I was fourteen when I died. And I died forty-four years ago."

I don't get the expressions of shock I was expecting from them. But then again, I think, they live in this horror-house of a hotel.

They are waiting for me to continue. I swallow and resolve that that glass I downed would be my last tonight.

"I had four sisters, and they all died the same year I did, in our own hands. We were aged thirteen to seventeen, and we will always be, I guess."

"How sad," murmurs Sally. Coming from her, I believe she really feels that way. Her eyes easily weeps misery.

Liz's hard countenance softens a little. "All suicide, huh. Well, what's the reason?"

"I didn't know it then, but some kind of a malevolent force, which I just recently learned has the form of a man in black, had been corrupting us."

"He's taken by you but can't have you." It's Sally. Liz nods in agreement.

"Yes, I guess."

Liz asks, "Is it the same man who ressurected you."

"Has to be. And he's plagued me since then."

"Stalked you."

"Exactly."

We are all silent for a while. And then Liz speaks, in a lighter tone. "So you're a vampire."

I smile. "Kind of. But I don't drink blood."

"Beware of Elizabeth." Sally's tone was grave. She looks behind her.

"The countess," adds Liz in a whisper.

"I know. I made a mistake of fucking his man on my first night here."

My companions giggle.

"But it's not just that," Liz says when he's recovered from his giggling fit. "If she learns you don't age without having to drink blood, she's going to try to steal your immortality."

"I'll be thankful."

Liz gives me a dark look. "She won't do it in a nice way."

I hear Sally release a long exhalation of smoke. And I find myself wishing to be in James March's arms.

"Oh," Liz interrupts my thoughts, "and Mr. March is also the countess's husband."


	11. RECKLESS

I don't care, I tell myself as I make my way to my room later. I've been scared and cautious these past forty-four years. And I've never been in love. Besides, the answer to my questions are in this hotel, and Elizabeth can't make me leave even if she owns it.

Liz and Sally told me this place actually belonged to James Patrick March, originally. So, if I have him on my side, the countess can't touch me.

_Ding._

I leave the elevator and start walking to my room.

Also, how can she make it worse for me? Will she be able to get my bloodless immortality by torturing me?

That _is_ a scary thought.

I look around me and do not see Elizabeth anywhere. So I walk on to room 64, pause outside the door.

I still want my answers. I still want to be happy. James will be on the other side of this door.

I want to be reckless just this once.

James is there when I throw the door open. I throw myself in his arms and kiss his red mouth passionately.

"I don't want to take advantage of you," he whispers.

"No. I want you to make love to me," I groan in his ear, which I lick and breathe in.

He picks me up by the ass and takes me to the bed.


	12. LUX AND JAMES

It is the most amazing sex I've had in my life.

As we are exploring each other's body on the bed, I feel as though I were being elevated to a higher plane if existence.

Our bodies are burning, but we are surrounded by a cool wind, carrying us up to heaven.

When I open my eyes, I am not surprised to find that we are floating in the middle of the air. We go on kissing passionately and rolling in the cold breeze, shedding our clothes like second skin.

The sound we are making is the perfect soundtrack to this otherwordly lovemaking.

And when James brings me back down to earth, I know just how big he desires me. I can feel my throat and my insides swelling in need and readiness.

"I have something to show you," he says.

In the dim light of this hotel room, I see the contours of his body. He is tall, broad on the shoulders, slim on the waist, long on the legs.

James has three legs--or so it would seem. That middle leg is really his manly organ, I know; I felt it up there.

"I want it in me," I say, breathing heavily.

"I can make it just right," James says, "so it will only be pleasant, not painful."

"Can you make it even bigger?" I ask, biting my lip.

When I see him grin, I pull him by his fat and long rope of a penis and guide him back to bed like a tame animal.

As he lies down, I play with the curious hot thing between his legs. It is not too hard and not too soft and I need my two hands to encircle it completely. As I sit on the mattress, the thing reaches my breasts as it stands erect. It doesn't stand still, though; it keeps on twitching, like it has a life of it's own.

"Come here, big boy," I moan. "Come to Mama." I envelope it in my arms and nestle it in between my heaving breasts.

James, humming in bliss, slides the thing up and down so its head softly jabs my chin. I stick out my tongue to play with its shiny hot dome.

And I feel it growing bigger still.

"My, my, James, you're swollen." His veins stand out, and I can feel a thirst in them. I am not afraid.

Finally, when we can't take it any longer, he gets up and makes me lie.

"Relax, Lux. What size do you want me to be?"

"Start small," I say. "I want to feel you grow inside me."

So I watch him make his manhood shrink. It is such a sight to behold. It's like watching something in fast forward. So effortless and so beautiful.

I know the result should be ugly. When he reaches the normal large erection size of a normal male, his organ should be so shriveled and wrinkled like an oversized raisin. But his thing retains its integrity and beauty. And this is what he slips in the waiting wetness in between my legs.

And we both moan in pleasure as we feel him growing inside me.

Sometimes it feels good to be opened wide and ripped apart. All inhibitions leave your being, all barriers and shells and second skins. You are free.

And this ultimate freedom and elation is what I feel--what I am--when James and I reach our climax. It is bliss and more.

I think, as I lie in this bed, in this room, with James, that if things don't work out in the end and I don't get the answers to my questions, my freedom from the man in black, at least I have this night to go back to, always.

And I smile.

And I dream that the next day will see the end to this and to my wanderings. I will finally find out.


	13. BROTHER

"I have something to ask you, James."

We have just finished the second round and we are sitting satiated on the floor, eating fruits from a bowl.

We are still naked. And it is dawn.

"What is this place?"

"It's a hotel."

We smile at each other.

"Seriously?" he asks.

"Seriously."

James swallows the grape he's been chewing. He looks far away. I turn and lean on the bed so we are both staring at the same side of the room. There's only the closed draped there, dark and thick and seemingly solid.

"This is a meeting point of the world of the living and of the dead."

"You are dead."

"I am, if I leave this hotel."

"Here, you are alive."

"You felt me, didn't you?"

"Indeed." I squeeze him between the legs and he laughs. "What about the other people in here?"

James holds my hand and squeezes it with some reassurance. "Both the living and the dead. Don't worry, they'll never touch you. They know how I feel about you."

"What about the man in black?"

James is silent.

"Tell me about him," I urge James. "I don't want any more lies. By now you know my feelings for you, James, but I can't bear any more questions."

"Yes. I know your story."

I quickly turn to him, letting go of his hand. "You do? How? Oh, Liz and Sally." I feel like an idiot.

"No. Your brother told me."

"What?" It was a stupid joke, if it was a joke. "I don't have a brother."

James still won't look at me. I'm beginning to feel uneasy.

"He made a deal with me."

"A deal?" I stand up and start getting dressed. James isn't joking; he's confusing me. And scaring me.

"Your brother--"

"I don't have a brother." There were only me and my four sisters--back when we were all alive. There has never been a brother.

"Your mother gave birth to him in this hotel on her way to Wayne, with your father. And he was born dead."

"Our parents would have told us about him."

"But why would they?"

If my parents were alive, they could enlighten me on this insane claim. But Mom died five years ago, and Dad three years before that. They got a divorce after the suicides of their children, including me.

I don't like where this conversation has steered into. It's the madness if this place. It has caught up with James.

Despite my growing apprehension, I find myself settling on the bed and wanting to know about James's story.

"Tell me, James."


	14. THE DEAL

  
"He's the twin brother of your eldest sister, Therese. He died and she lived. But he wouldn't stay dead, Lux. Not in this place. He grew up to be a man, and stayed in this hotel, until he found out that he still has an unsevered connection with his twin sister, who is alive and well in the world of the living. His anger and envy grew by the day, and with these his strength.

"When he had grown strong enough, he tried to leave the hotel, and he was able to, but as a shadow. He then followed that connection with his twin Therese, and this led him to your town, to Wayne. And to your home. The very bedrooms where you slept with your sisters."

My throat runs dry hearing this. I want to leave, but my legs are weighted with lead.

"The stalker," my mouth says.

"Yes, your stalker. The man in black. The force that made you all kill yourselves."

"That's why Trip said my stalker has my father's face. It's my brother." I feel very weak. But I fight the nausea. I won't faint here.

"Trip," James says. He sounded as though he liked the name. "What an interesting guy. He told me his story with you."

The grin on James face when he turns to look at me makes my blood run cold. "You talked to him?"

It seems as though he talked about me to a lot of people while I was somewhere else in the hotel. What is going on here?

"Don't worry, Lux. He's been taken care of."

"The blondes."

"Yes, Lux, the blondes played with him until he died the same way you did. Poetic justice, don't you think?"

I am finding it hard to breath. Did I really think I was in love with this ominous, dark man?

No matter, I need my answers, and I need them now. "What deal did you make with my brother?"

"You really want to know?"

I hug myself and nod my head.

"He would bring you here, sure that I would find you irresistible--which I did. In return, I would give him a child of his own blood, which he would then possess so he could live."

My jaw drops and my stomach churns. There's something inside me. James. And the dark man, my own brother.

I pull myself up to walk to the door, but I fall back down, weak. Something is already happening to me. "Isn't it enough that he killed us all, his own sisters?" I could barely make my voice audible, but I hissed the words.

James raises both hands as if fending accusations. "Don't ask me. I am only meeting my end of the bargain."

No, this isn't happening. "I will kill myself James, and this abomination inside me."

He is quiet for a while. And then he smiles. I suddenly find the twitching of his thin mustache revolting and unattractive. Looking in those onyx eyes, I flash on the dream I had of James stabbing a girl to death while fucking her.

"You cannot die here, Lux."

"I am not immortal."

"You belong here, Lux."

Tears fall from my eyes, unbidden. I drop myself on the bed and just cry.

I give up.


	15. MOTHER

  
I never did see my brother in his true form as a man in black or a shadow.

But I stayed in the hotel and gave birth here. And the baby that came out of me has my face, and James's, and all my sisters'. I cannot kill him. I cannot kill myself.

Since that night of revelations with James, I've slowly come to feel of this hotel as my home. James was right: I belong here. Liz and Sally, and even Iris, the receptionist, are all kind to me and my baby.

It is with Elizabeth I had reservations with. Hell, fear, actually. But one night while I was nursing my baby, she came into my room and introduced me to her child. He is a deformed boy with insatiable thirsts, according to his mother.

"I think being mothers can now make us feel closer," she says. And I let her son touch my sleeping baby. And he did not drink my son's blood. In fact he is good with him, and I think Ron, my boy, likes him back, a lot. Like they're brothers.

So, yes, Elizabeth and I are James's mistresses. But that isn't a problem. The countess is promiscuous.

This isn't a fairy tale ending. But I am happy, mad as that may sound. We have our guests, who entertain us with their stories, their dicks and cunts and little orgasms, and then, for some of them, with their blood.

And I can still go out. I am alive. I've never felt so alive.

I didn't seek the darkness. But it is with the dark that I found my happiness.  
***  
And a few years from now, when my child Ron is strong enough, my shadow brother will come back from his own wanderings, and then, my brother will become my son and my son will become my brother.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> © 2018 by Rubilec Mendoza


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